Argument

Supporters of Anastasia's killer have occasionally tried to raise the possibility that Justin Bruton killed Anastasia, and have been continued to raise that argument ever since the trial and conviction. Byron Case had spoken of Justin's suicidal tendencies early on in an interview with the Jackson County Sheriff's Department.¹ Justin's suicide, barely two days after Anastasia's murder,² even though it did not raise any questions of his culpability at trial, has made Case's supporters feel they have license to cast suspicion upon Justin.

Was There a Suicide Pact?

Just recently, supporters have confidently argued -- again -- that Anastasia's death was the result of a suicide pact with Justin Bruton. To forward this argument, they have to ignore or deny available evidence in order to assert this, and have to disregard the logic of the known facts, plus the fact that Case, the defendant in the murder, who would have so much to gain by such a theory, stated twice that he did not believe it.^3,4

In addition, Case described how Justin drove back to his apartment and played video games for awhile before they all visted a friend, took Kelly Moffett home, and visited another friend before Justin dropped him off at his own home,⁵ and neither he nor two defense witnesses made any indication that Justin was acting oddly.^{6, 7}

It has even been suggested that Anastasia committed suicide in front of Justin, that Justin took the gun and disposed of it, and then bought another with which to kill himself, again ignoring available evidence, this time the forensic evidence gathered at her autopsy. Anastasia's fatal wound was inconsistent with that of a self-inflicted one, the position of her body was inconsistent with such an act, and her arms and hands showed an absolute lack of the least bit gunshot residue. The supporter who first argued in favor of the murder/suicide theory claimed that it was a "simple" solution, until challenged, then argued elsewhere that it was a double suicide, wrongly claiming (again) that this was a "simple" solution.

What Is the Evidence?

What evidence do they have that would make Justin Bruton a likely suspect? Evidence to support the idea that Justin killed Anastasia is circumstantial at best, specious at worst. It is based upon the fact that both Justin and Anastasia at different times had spoken of suicide. A letter that Anastasia wrote to Justin only two days before her murder, cherry-picked and taken grossly out of context,⁷ was used to suggest that they had discussed suicide recently, and with each other. The claim has little else to offer as evidence, and no one has offered anything new toward that end.

Evidence to support the speculation that Anastasia killed herself is nonexistent (entirely speculative and not even as much as circumstantial), and the evidence against such a claim is easily found, such as the angle of her wound and the lack of residue on her hands. Even the Jackson County Sheriff's Department, which occasionally speculated that this was a murder/suicide, never even casually considered that could have been a double suicide. Anyone offering such speculation is merely showing their own desperation in seeking an alternative answer to the jury's findings.

Before the trial, Case himself stated that he did not believe Justin to be homicidal.⁸ Both of his most important defense witnesses both stated that Justin appeared calm and normal when they saw him an hour after the alleged argument between him and Anastasia.^9,10 According to testimony, Justin Bruton showed no signs of anger or any other clues that he might be homicidal or suicidal.

There is also the matter of the timing. According to testimony, Justin called Anastasia's home and spoke to her sister at about 9:30,¹¹ drove to a friend's apartment where he and Case spoke to the friend for about five to ten minutes¹² before dropping Case off at his own home some time between 10 and 10:30,^13,14 then called and spoke to Anastasia's father, alerting him that Anastasia was missing.¹⁵ Having spent more than two hours since the time that Anastasia had allegedly exited from his car, Justin would have had to drive back to the area of Lincoln Cemetery, found Anastasia, and then killed her, while Anastasia's father would be driving through the same area searching for her after Justin's call.

Disputation

The problem here is twofold: First, by all accounts in defense testimony, Justin had not been acting in any way homicidal nor suicidal that night,^{16, 17} and Case stated categorically that Justin just was not the kind of person who got physically angry. Second, if we assume his testimony and that of his friends about the events of the night to be true, Justin would have had no opportunity to kill Anastasia, based solely upon the timeframe.

Anastasia's time of death is estimated from available evidence as having been between 7:30 and 10:00 PM,¹⁸ which further reduces the likelihood of Justin having returned to kill her nearly to the point of absolute impossibility.

The only other possibility that could name Justin as the killer is a scenario in which both Case and Moffett (the State's eyewitness in the trial) actually witnessed Justin commit the murder. There was no rational reason to protect their dead friend, and while Case did attempt to muddy the waters about Justin's possible guilt,¹⁹ he declined to implicate Justin Bruton of the crime when given a direct opportunity.²⁰

Did Kelly Moffett name Justin Bruton as the killer? Yes,²¹ but only briefly and in sudden panic that she might herself be implicated for accusing her ex-boyfriend, and it should be noted that she quickly retracted that story,^22,23 and never made such a claim to police or prosecutors.

Was Justin implicated by anyone else? Oddly, the testimony of one of the defense witnesses seemed to indirectly implicate Justin Bruton. Abraham Kneisley, a close friend of Case, testified during the trial that Justin had only a couple of months before the murder approached him about wanting to obtain a weapon.²⁴ It was pointed out during cross-examination that the witness had interviewed with police a little more than a week after the murder and had never bothered to mention that fact, waiting until the trial to reveal it.²⁵

Had Justin Bruton killed Anastasia, and had Byron Case and Kelly Moffett witnessed it, then both would have been guilty of Obstruction of Justice, and possibly of Accessory to Murder, but that would have still cost him a considerably lesser sentence than Murder One. He had many opportunities to directly implicate Justin, and had no motivation to protect Justin while on trial himself for murder, so we must accept that Justin could not have killed Anastasia with his friends there to witness the crime. If Case did witness the murder and consistently lied to police about it, then he was a fool to have done so and allow himself to become implicated, and even more foolish to remain silent after having been accused.

Assuming that either of these scenarios could have occured, it still creates two important conundrums:

1. Forensic evidence indicates that Anastasia was surprised by her killer (an issue that is discussed at greater length elsewhere), and for Justin to have done so would have required Anastasia to become involved with something else, turn her back to Justin and to completely ignore his actions as he retrieved his rifle or shotgun from its hiding place (probably opening the trunk of his car) and walked up to her without interrupting her concentration. Without Anastasia having someone else with whom to argue, it it is unlikely that she would have turned her attention away from Justin so completely and for long enough for him to have surprised her and to have killed her in the manner in which she was murdered.
2. Justin would have had to completely dispose of the murder weapon that same night and then bought a new shotgun the following morning (fewer than 12 hours later) in order to commit suicide²⁶ the night after that.

Justin's suicide barely more than 48 hours after Anastasia's murder raises suspicion among Case's supporters, or at least gives them an excuse to point to his possible guilt over her murder. Jackson County Prosecutor Therese Crayon had felt also that it pointed to Justin's personal sense of guilt, but not that it meant his guilt in the crime.²⁷

The theory that Justin Bruton was the guilty party is less unbelievable than the Random Stranger theory, but only slightly so, and still not within the realm of plausibility.